Drubbing of Democrats shows 'extreme' GOP really mainstream
Published November 19, 2014
by J. Peder Zane, News and Observer, November 18, 2014.
Oops, they did it again. Those “extreme” North Carolina Republicans won another election.
In 2010, they took control of the legislature for the first time in a century. In 2012, they secured super-majorities in the legislature and the governor’s mansion as Mitt Romney carried the state. It was more of the same two weeks ago, as Republicans added the other U.S. Senate seat to their trophy case.
North Carolina is now a one-party state.
As goes North Carolina, so goes the nation. While padding their margin in the U.S. House, Republicans took control of the U.S. Senate; their net gain will be nine if the heavily favored Bill Cassidy defeats Mary Landrieu in Louisiana’s Dec. 6 run-off.
Taking the longer view, since President Obama’s sweeping victory in 2008, Democrats have lost almost 70 House seats and 14 seats in the Senate.
Democrats have also suffered devastating defeats on the local level. When Obama took office, his party held 28 governorships. After Nov. 4 – when Democrats lost in the midnight blue states of Maryland, Illinois and Massachusetts – the GOP now controls 31 state houses.
This string of drubbings shows that the recent election cannot be dismissed as the typical mid-term losses suffered by the incumbent president’s party. Instead of an isolated wave, they reflect a growing disenchantment with Obama and his party. (The liberal mainstream media have been so intent on undermining Republicans by highlighting their problems with women, minorities and the young, that they have largely ignored these facts on the ground.)
While handing the reins to Republicans, voters in North Carolina and around the nation discredited key arguments Democrats have offered to explain away their losses.
Since 2010, North Carolina Democrats and Moral Monday protesters have claimed that our elected GOP leaders do not speak for the people. On the only measure that matters, it is clear that they do. Like it or not, their approach to government is not extreme, it is mainstream.
North Carolina Democrats have also attributed their losses to the corrupting influence of money on politics. The headline on the New Yorker’s profile of the wealthy GOP donor Art Pope captured this belief: “State for Sale.” Money does matter; it does buy outsized influence. But Kay Hagan and her Democratic allies outspent Thom Tillis by almost $2 million and still lost.
Finally, North Carolina Democrats have accused Republicans of trying to steal elections and revive Jim Crow through “voter suppression laws.” Lo and behold, voter turnout was the same as it was in 2010 when Democrats ruled the roost – 44 percent (dismal, but ordinary). And early voting was up a whopping 34.7 percent this year, compared with the 2010 midterm election; and 47.6 percent of them were Democrats.
This has left Democrats with one card to cast doubt on the results – gerrymandering. A recent N&O editorial asserted: “The results from the 2014 general election look more like an indictment of Republican manipulation of the election process than the endorsement of Republican policies.”
I could note that Democrats didn’t complain about gerrymandering when they were in charge and that the practice is woven into the fabric of American politics – to the victor belongs the spoils. Still, it is true that Republicans went overboard in redrawing districts to maximize their electoral advantage.
Nevertheless, the GOP has won the last three state-wide races – the race for governor and president in 2012 and the Senate race in 2014. And Republican congressional candidates won 53 percent of the votes cast two weeks ago.
In addition, most national studies of gerrymandering have found that broad demographic changes rather than political manipulation favor Republicans. An article published in the New York Times noted, “Democrats receive more votes than seats because so many of their voters reside in dense cities [such as the Triangle and Charlotte regions] that Democratic candidates win with overwhelming majorities, while Republican voters are more evenly distributed across exurbs and the rural periphery.” It concluded that “even a nonpartisan redistricting process” might have little effect.
We are an almost evenly divided nation. Almost every winner will face strong opposition. It is not clear yet how far the majority of voters want Republicans to move the country to the right. They should be wary of overplaying their hand.
While Democrats advance their vision of government, they should stop pretending their policies enjoy broad support. They should be troubled by a recent New York Times story suggesting the party leaders see no reason to change course. Instead of taking unilateral action on immigration and climate change, the President should really, truly try to work with people’s duly elected representatives in Congress.
As he famously said, elections have consequences. Ignoring the democratic process is the definition of extremism.
November 19, 2014 at 8:32 am
Richard Bunce says:
Hey, how did this guy get this commentary into the N&O? Someone is going to be taken to the woodshed over this!
Ultimately the voters decide who is elected or not. They very often do not vote as I vote but I do not think they are somehow coerced or bought by campaign ads... are even wrong for themselves... just wrong for me.
What is heartening is that perhaps voters are seeing the problem with the real vote buying in politics... candidates promising large groups of voters government benefits and services to be paid for by other smaller groups of voters.
November 19, 2014 at 11:40 am
Norm Kelly says:
Holy Crap, Batman! The sky TRULY is falling! This editorial appeared in the demoncrat ally paper, the N&D?!?! Did everyone at the N&D editorial board die suddenly and no one was left in charge?! First, it contains too much truth. Second, it demonstrates that the libs heads are in the sand, and that they are smoking a very powerful mind-altering weed. Third, it confirms for most thinking people that it's the Republicans most in touch with real people, the real world, and that it's virtually the entire DemocRAT party, nationwide, that is out of touch with reality AND the majority of Americans.
How do we know for a fact that DemocRATS, from the top down, are out of touch with reality AND the American voter (legal & otherwise)? Simple. Listen to the occupier just once, as painful as it is to do, when he says that he heard the 56% of voters who DIDN' BOTHER GETTING OUT TO VOTE! He CHOOSES to ignore the 44% who did vote, while making up the story being told by those who don't speak. We know he's making it up becuase if you don't speak, you are obviously NOT telling a story. Yet, somehow, the occupier hears voices. Maybe that's why he's such a poor example of a President, and why he does EVERYTHING in opposition to the majority AND the US Constitution.
Need another example? XL Pipeline. Wanted by the majority of voters. Wanted by the majority of House members, Republicans and Socialists. Of course, the Senate only took up the issue because they sorta kinda wanted to give Mary a leg up on her opponent. But even attempting to show support for one of their own was not sufficient reason to do the RIGHT and correct thing for the nation. Some of us remember when Newt commented during the previous presidential run that if we became a major producer, prices would naturally fall. Since then, despite the best efforts of the Socialist Party, we have become a major producer of energy. What has been the result? Prices below $3 PER GALLON in an awfully long time. We can expect Demoncrats to start calling for an increase in the gas tax in order to drive the price up again. They will fall back on their old, tired, worn out, decades old playbook and say that if the market won't keep the price high, encourage people to become more energy efficient, then it's up to them to force us to be more wise by artificially jacking up the price.
Everything Demons stand for, everything demons support, is being rejected by the majority of voters. Everything demons attempt is pushed through in the courts because their schemes are so overwhelmingly rejected by citizens. Even when socialized medicine went to SCOTUS, they actually rejected it as UNCONSTITUTIONAL! It was through slight-of-hand that John Roberts changed the 'penalty' to a 'tax' that allowed it to stand. But the demons in Congress WROTE THE LAW as a penalty. Only when the courts said that Congress didn't have the power to penalize people for NOT choosing to participate in a given market, but they DID have to power to tax people, then the law became legal. Another case of a bad idea being rejected by thinking people, but forced on us by the courts.
